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Stargate SG-1 Ends On SciFi Channel

The SciFi Channel just announced that they will not be renewing Stargate SG-1 next season, and that it's slated to end at 215 episodes total. This announcement is a bit odd in it's timing considering all the hoopla surrounding the airing of the (MOST excellent) 200th episode last Friday.

I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this... On the one hand it's like having an old friend move away, but on the other I really think it's time to lay it to rest.

I really think the producers should have been gutsy and pulled a "Seinfeld": End production on the series at it's peak at the end of Season 8. That was the last season that had the original cast members functioning as a team, with O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) having been promoted to General. The Replicators and the Gould (I don't remember where the accent goes) were essentially defeated and they could have written a kick-butt series finale episode.

Since RDA left the show, it really hasn't been the same and it seems to be all over the place. I mean it's certainly not terrible, but I don't look forward to it (and neither do my wife and daughter) like we used to a couple of seasons back.

Sure, Ben Browder, Beau Bridges and grudgingly, even Claudia Black are growing on me, but it just doesn't seem like the same show anymore. It's almost like it's a new show placed in the exact same setting. Michael Shanks' Daniel Jackson character has morphed into a comedic O'Neill replacement, Christopher Judge's Teal'c is starting to seem like a parody of himself, and Amanda Tapping's Samantha Carter seems like she's just on the sidelines now.

In addition to that, I just really haven't liked the Ori as the new villains... I actually miss the Gould and all the overly dramatic, haughty arrogance. At least they were fun as villains. The Ori are boring and I've never liked the anti-religious tone of the story arc.

Episode 200 was a WONDERFUL love letter to the fans (much the opposite of the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, which was supposed to be one as well, but in fact blew major chunks), and I think a fitting episode for (nearly) closing what has been overall a fantastic series.

Of course there are rumblings of a movie of some sort brewing in some back room, and executive producer Rober Cooper says that there are plans afoot to keep the series alive in some form, so we probably haven't seen the last of Stargate: SG-1.